Berghaus New For Autumn 2008

We popped up to see the nice folk at Berghaus last Friday and came away with some scoop details on the 2009 Berghaus range, but before we scream headlong into the future, we thought you might like a quick heads up on what's new in technical clothing from the north east brand this autumn / winter 2008, this is kit that's appearing in an outdoors shop near you right about now...

Gore-Tex Shells

Berghaus has a new top-end Gore-Tex Pro Shell jacket for this winter. It's called the Attrition Jacket and it's very distinctive with some seriously technical features. The most obvious of these is an asymmetric front zip with a Hannibal Lecter-style ventilated face mask.


The idea - developed with sponsored climber Andy Kirkpatrick - is to give more facial protection, but without inhibiting breathing. It's very distinctive, but an interesting idea. As is the mahoosive Raptor hood. This is arguably the best helmet hood we've seen with massive volume allowing it to swallow a climbing helmet without inhibiting head movement. When Berghaus showed it off to the press earlier this year, it even swallowed Cameron McNeish and helmet without so much as a minor burp...

Other touches include internal gasket wrist cuffs to give an extra level of waterproofing, core body vents and an internal Primaloft collar with spindrift guard. Price is £300 and it's an unashamed, top-end, technical climbing jacket.


Probably more generally useable is the £220 Temperance Jacket, above - it's the company's lightest Gore-Tex Pro Shell which has the same Raptor Hood design as the Attrition, but is generally a simpler design albeit with lightweight reinforcement in high wear areas. The two chest pockets have vented linings and the cut is close and technical. Our medium test jacket weighs in at a genuine 450 grammes without feeling unduly delicate.

Also new are women's-specific Extrem jackets, which Berghaus says have been cut for a close, bulk-removing fit to the female form. The top-end jacket is the Chogori which is the local name for K2, and features the helmet-swallowing Raptor Hood along with core vents. There's also a Gyalgen lightweight jacket, similar in spec' to the men's Temperance.

Soft Shell

Also new to the range is the Diffusion Soft Shell jacket, which uses a new fabric called Soft Shell Engineered and is body mapped, it says here, with extra breathability built in where you need it. There's a durable woven outer layer with high water repellancy and a knitted inner for comfort, but in the middle there's an engineered layer with variable breathability.  You also get more insulation front and back and less under the arms. The fabric has built-in stretch as well.


It sounds interesting though not cheap at £150 and we're looking forward to seeing how it performs. There are matching pants as well.

Insulation...

One last technical highlight in the form of the nicely named Combust Jacket which is a new Primaloft P1-filled design intended for use in cold, damp conditions as an alternative to down.  It features a gurt, big Raptor helmet hood, lots of reflective and an outer shell fabric that uses a thin PU coating to keep out wind and resist showers and moisture. Should make a good belay jacket - £150.


More information at www.berghaus.com